


Making It Right

by flipflop_diva



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, Jemma Simmons & Skye | Daisy Johnson Friendship, POV Skye | Daisy Johnson, Post-Season/Series 05 Finale, Team as Family, Time Travel, Time Travel Fix-It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-27
Updated: 2019-01-27
Packaged: 2019-10-17 22:45:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17569361
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flipflop_diva/pseuds/flipflop_diva
Summary: They saved the world, but they didn't save him. Daisy thinks it's time they try again. Jemma, Deke and Yo-Yo help.





	Making It Right

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Quin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quin/gifts).



> Spoilers for the Season 5 finale.

“No, Daisy, you know we can’t do this.” Jemma looked helplessly at her friend. “We’ve been over this. We all know how this will end.”

“But that’s it,” Daisy argued. “We _don’t_ know how this will end. Not this time.”

“But we do know,” Jemma countered. “The world going boom. Living in space. Being dead. Ring any bells?”

Daisy shook her head. They had been going back and forth on this for weeks now, but Daisy had no plans to give in, no matter how long it took. She had thought it through many times over, every idea, every plan, every possibility. All they had to do was go back in time to before Garrett died, find the Centipede serum and bury it in a safe place in the Lighthouse. If they had two doses, they could leave everything to happen exactly as it had, with Coulson slipping her the first dose to use to end Talbot. 

But then now, here in the Lighthouse, they would have a second dose that they could use to save Coulson before it was too late.

“That was the original timeline,” she pleaded with Jemma, for what felt like the millionth time. “We changed that. This will be different.”

“You don’t know that,” Jemma said. “It’s simply much too risky. Letting him go was the who reason we saved the world. And you don’t even know he would want to be saved.”

“It’s worth the risk,” Daisy said. “And shouldn’t that be his decision to make?”

“He didn’t want to be saved last time,” Jemma pointed out reasonably.

“Because that serum was the only one,” Daisy argued. “That wouldn’t be the case this time. Jemma, please. We have to try.”

Jemma turned to the others in the room. Yo-Yo and Deke, who hadn’t blinked out of existence after all, although his memories had changed. He remembered now finding a time machine in his grandparents’ house and falling into a void before ending up here. 

“You know how much I love Coulson,” Jemma said to the other two. “But we can’t do this. It’s too risky. We don’t yet understand the effects of time travel, and it could reset everything back to that original timeline.” She sighed and turned back to Daisy. “I want him to live, too, Daisy, but we can’t risk the end of the world.”

“But aren’t I proof of the effects of time travel?” Deke piped up. “I’m still here.”

“I think we need to try,” Yo-Yo said. “How can we live with ourselves if we don’t try?”

“You guys …” Jemma started, but she trailed off without saying more.

“Jemma,” Daisy pleaded again. “Please. You have to at least try. And I promise, if it goes wrong, I’ll make sure he …” She closed her eyes, the words almost stuck in her throat, but if there was any way — any way at all — to get Jemma to do this … “If it goes wrong,” she repeated, with a clearer throat, “I’ll let him die, just like right now.” She paused. “I promise,” she repeated.

Jemma sighed, and cast a miserable look at Daisy. “If it does wrong,” she said, “it might be too late. Besides, I don’t even know how we would do it. We don’t have Fitz here to help. And we don’t invent time travel for ages yet. I’m not sure it’s even possible.”

Deke cleared his throat. “I know how it was done,” he said. “I have the sketch.”

They all turned to stare at him. He shrugged.

“My grandparents — umm, my future grandparents — they taught me things. I can do it.”

Yo-Yo, Deke and Daisy turned again to Jemma. Her eyes were welling with tears, but Daisy could see on her face that she was going to do it. 

They had won. They had a chance to give Coulson his life back. It was all she had wanted. 

•••

It took them three months to put the time machine together, each day a race against the clock. May called every week with an update. Coulson was getting sicker by the day. The end was near. 

In the meantime, the team had spruced up the Lighthouse while Mac recruited new agents. They went back to training, back to fighting, back to saving the world every damn day, but something was missing. They all felt it. 

Their hearts. Their souls. Their true leader.

Each night, after all the other agents had gone to bed, Jemma, Deke, Yo-Yo and Daisy met in secret to work on the device that would let Yo-Yo go back in time to get and hide the Centipede serum. Daisy had wanted to go, but Jemma had argued against it. 

“Going back to your own timeline can have devastating consequences,” she had said.

Daisy had been willing to risk it anyway, but she knew the other points Jemma made were valid. Yo-Yo’s powers were the best suited for making sure she wasn’t seen, and no one in Hydra at the time knew of her so she it wouldn’t be as fatal if she was discovered. She could pretend to be one of them if she had to.

One good thing had come from the whole process, though. As the days went by and they faced an array of setbacks and also accomplishments, Jemma’s objections grew less or less. Or maybe she just stopped voicing them out loud, Daisy wasn’t sure. Until one night when she was late meeting the others and she overheard a discussion not meant for her ears.

“You still think we aren’t doing the right thing?” Deke was asking. Daisy, from the doorway, could see the backs of their heads, bent together over the table as they worked the math for some aspect of the time travel device.

“I don’t know,” she heard Jemma answer. “Perhaps not.”

“You’re still wary about messing with time?”

“You know I am,” Jemma said. “Messing with time can have serious consequences. We know this.”

“I know,” Deke answered. “But I also know messing with time was what saved us all in the first place.”

“But was it?” Jemma argued. “Maybe messing with time was what led us to the situation where the world was destroyed in the first place.”

“Maybe messing with time again saved it,” Deke said. Daisy saw him reach up and rub his head. “This is making my head hurt.”

“I’m just worried this might make things worse.”

Deke shrugged. “What if this makes things even better?”

Jemma didn’t answer, so Daisy took the moment to make her presence known. She walked in, her footsteps slightly louder than normal.

“How’s it going?” she asked, as though she hadn’t heard a word.

“Good news,” Jemma said, and Daisy though the smile across her face really was one of genuine excitement. “I think we have made a breakthrough.”

•••

Daisy’s hands were shaking. All the nerves in her body felt like they were on fire. She thought she might throw up.

She had been so calm. So confident. But now that it was here, now that it was time …

What if something went wrong? What if Yo-Yo got caught? What if they screwed up the present even more by trying to fix the past?  
She took a deep breath, before feeling a soft hand on her arm. 

Jemma.

“Yo-Yo’s got this,” she said. “You’ve trained her well.”

“You’re the one who didn’t want us to do this,” Daisy said.

“Perhaps I was wrong.”

“Perhaps you were right.”

“Daisy.” Jemma came around in front of her and put both hands on her shoulders. “You don’t believe that. You know this can work. We can save Coulson. Now come on. Let’s go send Yo-Yo into our past.”

•••

They waited until Yo-Yo had disappeared with a flash of light and a tinkle of sound. The lab felt strangely quiet and very uneasy.

“Well?” Jemma said to her and Deke.

“It’s now or never,” Daisy answered.

They walked out of the lab and over to the elevator, pressing the button that would take them to the surface. Once outside, they headed straight to the tallest tree around, dropping to their knees on its eastern side.

It took ten minutes to dig, until they heard the metal clang of their hammer hitting something solid. They stared at each other.

“Oh, my god,” Daisy whispered.

A minute later, the small silver case was in Daisy’s hands. A tear dripped down her cheek when she opened it to see the Centipede serum nestled in the red cloth inside.

“She did it,” Daisy whispered. “It worked.”

“Well,” Jemma said, and by the light of the moon, Daisy thought she looked very proud. “Let’s go call Coulson. It’s time to bring him home.”


End file.
